Alexandria: Library of Dreams
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Document name: Alexandria: Library of Dreams Document date: 2002 Copyright information: Activities 2 and 4: extracts from: Roger Bagnall ‘Alexandria: Library of Dreams (2002) in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, published by American Philosophical Society. Courtesy of Dr Bagnall and American Philosophical Society. OpenLearn Study Unit: The Library of Alexandria OpenLearn url: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/library- alexandria/content-section-0 Alexandria: Library of Dreams Roger S. Bagnall Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 146, No. 4 (Dec. 2002), pp. 348–362 Published by: American Philosophical Society www.open.edu/openlearn Page 1 of 1 Alexandria: Library of Dreams Author(s): Roger S. Bagnall Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 146, No. 4 (Dec., 2002), pp. 348-362 Published by: American Philosophical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1558311 . Accessed: 09/09/2014 11:18 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Philosophical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alexandria:Library of Dreams1 ROGER S. BAGNALL Professorof Classics and History Columbia University Y TITLE does not intendto suggestthat the Alexandrian Librarydid not exist,but it does point to what I regardas 1JvJ. z the unreal characterof much that has been said about it. The disparitybetween, on the one hand, the grandeurand importance of this library,both in its realityin antiquityand in its image both ancientand modern,and, on theother, our nearlytotal ignorance about it, has been unbearable.No one, least of all modernscholars, has been able to acceptour lack of knowledgeabout a phenomenonthat embodies so manyhuman aspirations. In consequence,a whole literatureof wish- ful thinkinghas grown up, in which scholars-even, I fear,the most rigorous-have cast aside the time-testedmethods that normallycon- straincredulity, in order to be able to avoid confessingdefeat. After sketchingbriefly the main lines of our ignoranceof the Library'shis- tory,I shall talk about threetypes of dreamsthat have beguiledcom- mentatorsancient and modern:dreams about the size of theBibliotheca Alexandrina;dreams about placing the blame forits destruction;and dreamsabout the consequencesof its loss.2But thereare some positive lessonsas well, as I hope to show. There is no ancientaccount of the foundationof the Library.3We I Read 10 November2000. 2The bibliographyon the BibliothecaAlexandrina is enormous;I referto it very selectivelyin whatfollows. The followingworks are citedbelow by author's name: Mostafa El-Abbadi,The Life and Fate of theAncient Library of Alexandria(Paris, 1990); Rudolf Blum,Kallimachos, the AlexandrianLibrary and the Originsof Bibliography,tr. H. H. Wellisch(Madison, 1991); Lionel Casson, Librariesin the AncientWorld (New Haven, 2001); Diana Delia, "FromRomance to Rhetoric:The AlexandrianLibrary in Classicaland IslamicTraditions," AHR 97 (1992): 1449-67; P. M. Fraser,Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford,1972); K. S. Staikos,The Great Libraries:From Antiquity to the Renaissance (Londonand New Castle,Del., 2000). More extensivereferences to theancient sources than are possiblehere may be foundparticularly in El-Abbadi,Delia, and Fraser. 3 Blum,100, suggeststhat Callixeinos may have given such an account,and thatsome of theinformation in laterwriters may derive from him. I can see no evidencefor this view. PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY VOL. 146, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2002 [348] This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ALEXANDRIA: LIBRARY OF DREAMS 349 have onlybrief and glancingreferences. The nearestthing to evena briefhistory appears in thepreface to a commentaryon Aristophanes writtenby the Byzantine polymath John Tzetzes in thetwelfth century. Kindercritics say that Tzetzes "preserves much valuable, though to be surenot alwayscorrectly reported, information on ancientliterature and culturalhistory."4 The lesscharitable call him"copious, careless, quarrelsome"and "extremelyinaccurate.... His uncorroboratedevi- denceis accordinglyviewed with much suspicion"5 or "quiteunjustifi- ablyconceited about his own attainments."6Tzetzes, like the ancient traditiongenerally,7 treated Ptolemy II Philadelphosas theking who createdthe Library. He describeshow threemen, Alexandros of Aeto- lia, Lykophronof Chalkis,and Zenodotosof Ephesos,worked with Ptolemyto acquirebooks.8 One mightthen think that the foundationby Philadelphoswas secure.But no. Tzetzes,like othersources, also mentionsthat Ptolemy collectedthe books "through"Demetrios of Phaleron.Now thisDem- etrios,a pupil of Theophrastosand earlierof Aristotle,had ruledAthens forthe Macedonian kingCassander fora decade (317-307); afterCas- sander'sdeath, he fledto Egypt,joining the court of PtolemyI Soter, the fatherof Philadelphos,where he certainlycontributed much to the royalproject of makingAlexandria a worthyrival to Athens.He made, however,the strategicmiscalculation of supportingas Soter'ssuccessor the older half-brotherof Philadelphos,and whenthe lattercame to the throneinstead, the sexagenarianDemetrios paid for his mistakewith internalexile, dyingsoon thereafter.9He is, in short,not a good candi- date forcollaborator with Ptolemy II. Demetriosis alreadypresent, however, in the earliestsurviving text to talk about the Library,namely the curious Letterto Philocrates,a work of thesecond century B.C. thatclaims to be thework of a courtier of PtolemyII named Aristeas.10As far as we know,there was no such personas thisAristeas.11 Although some competent modern scholars have been at pains to praise Pseudo-Aristeas'sknowledge of the Ptolemaic 4W. 0. Schmitt,Kleine Pauly 5 (Munich,1975), 1033. 5Oxford Classical Dictionary,2d ed. (Oxford,1970), 1102 (P.B.R. Forbes,Robert Browning). 6 L. D. Reynoldsand N. G. Wilson,Scribes and Scholars,2d ed. (Oxford,1974), 62. 7 See Fraser1:321. 8Prolegomena de comoediaAristophanis 2. 9The major source is Diogenes Laertius 5.75-85 (F. Jacoby,Die Fragmenteder GriechischenHistoriker IIB [Leiden,1962], 642-43, no. 228 Ti). 10Andr6Pelletier, s.j., La lettred'Aristee a Philocrate(Paris, 1962). 11Prosopographia Ptolemaica 6 (Leuven,1968), no. 14588, considershim probably fictitious. This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 350 ROGER S. BAGNALL milieu,12to the extentthat he reflectsany realityit is thatof the second century,not the third,and the work is fullof incrediblethings.13 The court detail is, indeed, "merelycorroborative detail, intendedto give artisticverisimilitude to an otherwisebald and unconvincingnarra- tive," as Pooh-Bah would put it (Mikado, act 2). It was Demetrios, accordingto Pseudo-Aristeas,who persuaded PtolemyII to commis- sion the translationof theJewish scriptures that we call the Septuagint in order to help complete the royal library'sholdings; this story, indeed,is the centerpieceof thispiece ofJewish propaganda. Now mostphilologists, faced with texts full of misinformationand a flatcontradiction such as the juxtapositionbetween Demetrios and Philadelphosoffers, would normallybe extremelyskeptical, or dismiss Demetrios' role as fiction.14Not here, however.Everything reported mustbe keptin some fashion.So, almostunanimously, the reaction has been to suppose that PtolemyI was the real founderof the Library, assisted by Demetrios,while Zenodotos was eithera subordinate" or came to the foreafter Philadelphos came to thethrone.16 The onlyreal basis for such a view, other than a desperatedesire not to abandon the sources,is a statementof Strabo thatAristotle taught Ptolemy the 12 Fraser1:696-704 gives a detaileddiscussion, dwelling (699-700) on the author's knowledgeof thePtolemaic court (his picture is clearlythat of thesecond century, after the introductionof courtranks). Fraser dates the work to thereign of PtolemyVI Philometor (180-145 B.C.). Otherviews differ, but a mid-second-centurydate is plausible.For recent generaldiscussions of "Aristeas,"see J.M.G.Barclay, Jews in theMediterranean Diaspora: FromAlexander to Trajan(323 BCE-i 17 CE) (Berkeley,1999 [Edinburgh,1996]), 138-50 and E. S. Gruen,Heritage and Hellenism:The Reinventionof Jewish Tradition (Berkeley, 1998), 207-22, withthe discussion comparing them by D. R. Schwartz,Classical Philology 95 (2000): 352-54. 13 For example,Ps.-Aristeas believes that there are stilltwelve tribes in Judaea,and he claims that Ptolemyliberated a hundredthousand slaves in Ptolemaicpossession by purchasingthem from their owners. How Fraser(1:700) can thinkthis is a "genuinedocument" is mystifying,although he is not alone. The textcited as a parallel,C. Ord. Ptol. 22, is, despitesome verbal similarities (accepted even by the usually skeptical Gruen [above, n. 12], 211), radicallydifferent.